Alba Zari

The attraction to our own reflection stems from an ancestral instinct.

 

The act of recognizing ourselves is, in fact, the first step toward self-awareness. Aside from humans, only dolphins, elephants, and chimpanzees are capable of recognizing their image in a mirror. The mirror restores the boundaries, shapes, and colors of the idea we have of ourselves, giving us a sense of uniqueness. The first time we recognize ourselves in the mirror is the moment we realize that the world can see us too.

 

Fear of Mirrors is an investigation into the forms of representation we adopt in order to communicate. With the digital revolution and social media, the mirror has turned into a screen. Behind this mirror, it is no longer the Other who hides—that distorted and unsettling self from the dark fairy tales of our childhood—but others: a community composed of heterogeneous digital identities. They exist through multiple and fleeting interactions, where one of the most easily communicable facets is one's own image.

 

In Fear of Mirrors, Alba Zari chooses to analyze a specific category: that of women, whose freedom of expression has always been restricted. Through an extensive research process, Zari seeks to understand how the aesthetic and behavioral norms dictated by the patriarchy have influenced female self-representation, and whether new technologies have truly allowed for liberation or have simply created another illusion of nonconformity.

 

Alba Zari also plays with the media, experiments with herself, and becomes a self-aware victim: she portrays, by martyring her own image, exposing how the body and its representation remain trapped in sexualized dynamics. And it is from this performative exploration that she moves on to a direct confrontation with the digital world.